You are currently viewing the old forums. We have upgraded to a new NFL Forum. This old forum is being left as a read-only archive.
Please update your bookmarks to our new forum at forums.footballsfuture.com.

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:16 pm Post subject: Any thoughts on this or is this typical Snyder?

National editor, The Washingtonian

Washington Post Toughens Redskins Coverage; Team Yanks Newspaper’s 267 Season Tickets
For many Washingtonians, a season ticket to Washington Redskins games is almost as valuable as a place at a White House dinner. This week the Redskins cut the number of season tickets held by the Washington Post from 279 to 12.

The team’s Los Angeles–based flack said the Post tickets were yanked because many recipients were scalping them.

The Post said most of the tickets were going to “newspaper delivery people—and their families.” Executive editor Len Downie said he had “no evidence” that any of the 51 tickets that went to newsroom staffers had been resold.

Last week Jenkins wrote a column asking if the wheels “are coming off this Redskins team, just as they have come off every Redskins team under the ownership of Snyder.”

She added, “If the Redskins have proven anything, it’s that the triumvirate structure of Snyder-Cerrato-name-the-head-coach doesn’t work.” Vinny Cerrato is the Redskins’ director of player personnel.

Snyder told associates that the Post was “persecuting” him.

Which fits into Sally Jenkins’s analysis of the inner Dan Snyder.

“I don’t pretend to understand the behavior of Dan Snyder,” she tells me. “It would take a Freudian analysis. But I do think that in the absence of any attention, he would take negative attention. He would rather be the central figure in a dysfunctional team than a peripheral figure in a successful team.”

Jenkins is the only Post columnist who has been pointed in her criticism of Snyder’s management of Washington’s beloved football team. Perhaps she has the perspective to question the team because she’s writing from New York, beyond the Redskins hometown spell, in contrast to fellow columnists Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon.

Snyder is probably also miffed because he grew up reading generally glowing coverage by the Post, and the Post covered the Redskins with kid gloves during his first years of ownership, even as he hired and fired coaches and players in what many saw as a too-impatient and mercurial desire to buy a winning team.

The Post has purchased a block of season tickets every year since the 1950s, a portion of which goes to the newsroom. Executive editor Downie is a fan, as are former managing editor Steve Coll and deputy managing editor Milton Coleman.

Could readers have expected unbiased coverage of the pro-football season when the Post gets to buy so many valuable season tickets—more seats than go to any other company?

Two new voices changed the tone of the Post’s coverage. Sportswriter Nunyo Demasio came from out of town and started to develop sources beneath the team’s management. He began to break stories about dissatisfied players and impending trades. Jenkins wrote columns that were openly critical of Snyder.

Now the Redskins have pulled the seats.

“I can’t imagine that my column had that much effect,” says Jenkins. “There have to be three or four more stories that have pissed them off more.”

Indeed, the Post first irritated the Redskins last year when it published several stories by Jason La Canfora and Thomas Heath about the addition of seats to FedEx Field, some of which put fans behind pillars.

In January the Redskins floated a plan to force season-ticket holders to use a Redskins charge card to buy tickets. A Post story broke the news; Kornheiser followed with a column critical of Snyder. The Redskins dropped the idea.

Last month Demasio broke stories about star receiver Laveranues Coles being unhappy with the Redskins and the way revered head coach Joe Gibbs has run the offense. Demasio also covered the contract dispute between Snyder and star linebacker LaVar Arrington, who claims Snyder owes him $6.5 million.

Says Jenkins, “It generally irks Snyder that he can’t control coverage of the Washington Redskins as he would like. He wants the friendly coverage that he thinks he’s owed.” Snyder’s temperament is “combative and unreasonable,” she says.

“This ticket thing is combative, silly, and vengeful—needlessly so,” she adds. “It has to do only with Dan Snyder’s mysterious temperament. He’s perpetually unhappy about something.”

Jenkins, an award-winning columnist who won the Associated Press Sports Editors’ top award last year and is up for the same this year, says her column was not the “tipping point” in the scrap over tickets.

But it could be a tipping point in the final separation of Washington’s dominant newspaper from the town’s dominant sports team.

In this round of Ticketgate, Post employees lose seats. Happily, the Post’s coverage probably benefits. The real winners could be the fans.

—HARRY JAFFE
hjaffe@washingtonian.com
More Washington Buzz
_________________If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you can read this in English, thank a soldier.

It was probably some of both. Dan Snyder didn't like that someone else was profiting from the redskins instead of him. The majority of the scalped tickets confiscated this last year came from the batch that were issued to the post.

I'm not sure how he would benefit financially from making these tickets available to the season ticket holder instead of to the post unless the post got some ridiculous discounts on the tickets.

It was probably some of both. Dan Snyder didn't like that someone else was profiting from the redskins instead of him. The majority of the scalped tickets confiscated this last year came from the batch that were issued to the post.

I'm not sure how he would benefit financially from making these tickets available to the season ticket holder instead of to the post unless the post got some ridiculous discounts on the tickets.

I have to agree with you Riggo. I'm sure Danny hates the negative criticism he gets, but I can't imagine that it would be the only reason for his actions.

I personally don't understand why he would care that the tickets were being scalped in the first place. I would think that if someone is willing to pay the markup for the already high priced tickets, the chances are they're going to spend more money while they're in the stadium than the person selling the ticket would have.

Dogs, I have a question for you. Why would a Cowboys fan in New Mexico be reading articles from the Washingtonian?

Dogs, I have a question for you. Why would a Cowboys fan in New Mexico be reading articles from the Washingtonian?[/quote]
It was just something I found while surfing. I read just about anything that has to do with the NFL._________________If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you can read this in English, thank a soldier.

WOW!
Thats some pretty serious "Friendly Fire" coming from her.
Their seems to be a pattern here, Agree?_________________If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you can read this in English, thank a soldier.

I tend to agree. My thoughts on Dan are that he's a business man who wants results from his employees. He also happens to be a life long Skins fan, which brings in his emotion. Put the two together and you get what we've seen over the past 10 years(or however long it's been).

The best thing about having Gibbs is that he's probably one of Dan's idols, therefore he'll be able to stay the course and get the Skins back on the path to success. If Dan fired Gibbs you'd see the equivalent of the LA riots at the Dan Snyder estate and Redskins Park.

This is a guy who on the first day he owned the team, fired 20 long time employees from the office staff. I guess he has since realized that those secretaries and receptionists were not what was keeping the team out of the Super Bowl. He is NOT Jerry Jones. Jones picks on people his own size (figuratively, Snyder would be a high school bully if he was picking on kids his own size) Jones tried to make it at the expense of his fellow owners, trying to make money by making his own deals outside of the NFL deals with soda and endorsement and paraphernalia vendors. Snyder makes it by trying to make fans pay to see training camp. This is a guy who brings in coaches who are successful every where else they coach but cant break even under Snyder. Snyder inherited a competent if unexceptional coach in Norv Turner and when he dcided to fire Norv, he ordered Norv to meet him in the dressing room after a game and then flew out of town, never showing up to tell Norv he was fired. He brought in Schottsie who has won everywhere he has been but fired him to bring in Spurrier, who even won at Duke for god's sake but couldnt win under Snyder. When Gibbs, a classy guy, decides that Coles is not a good fit, Snyder makes stupid childish threats to Coles in a fit of anger instead of letting Gibbs gret rid of him. This is a guy who keeps a laughing stock in charge of his personnel dept because it doesnt interfere with the Boss interfering with personnel decisions. If Jerry Jones is a pimple on the posterior of humanity, Snyder is the puss in that pimple. The Skins cant lose enough while Snyder owns the team.

Last edited by inkwell on Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:20 pm; edited 1 time in total

I'm not sure of his exact age, but I think he's in his mid 40s. Who knows how long he'll own the team, I would guess a long time though.

As a Skins fan I like you guys having Jerry Jones too. He ran off one of the best coaches in the NFL, and hasn't hired a good one since.

Dan's just a younger, wealthier (I think) version of Jerry Jones.

I'm assuming your talking about Jimmy Johnson. Yes he did run him off but he didn't do to much when he coached else where. He could be a coach that benefited from good assistant coaches. We've seen alot of that in this league._________________If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you can read this in English, thank a soldier.